BASKETBALL; In the N.B.A.'s Age Game, Colleges Are Big Winners

By DAVID PICKER

Published: April 22, 2006

Kevin Durant seems to have all the tools to succeed in the N.B.A. He has impressive speed, rebounds with authority and has a 6-foot-10-inch frame that may sprout even higher.

Durant, a forward at Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md., has heard the endless chatter about where he would have been selected in the N.B.A. draft in June. A first-rounder? No doubt. A lottery pick? Probably so.

''I try not to listen to it,'' Durant said after practicing Thursday with many other top high school seniors for the Jordan All-American Classic, an annual all-star game held tonight at Madison Square Garden.

Had Durant graduated last year, he would have been eligible for the 2005 draft. But last summer the N.B.A. altered its age limit, and this year's high school seniors cannot jump to a 20,000-seat professional arena from a 20-desk classroom.

Players must now turn at least 19 during the year in which they are drafted and be one year removed from their graduating class.

Durant will make a pit stop at the University of Texas this fall and will be eligible for next year's draft. He said that he might remain in Austin for more than a year, but he then hinted at the contrary.

''I think I would have gone this year if I could have, because that's my dream, to go to the N.B.A.,'' Durant said. ''Why not sooner than later?''

In previous years, practices for the Jordan All-American Classic were teeming with N.B.A. scouts. LeBron James, Dwight Howard and Amare Stoudemire were evaluated here before being drafted out of high school and then enjoying immediate success in the N.B.A.

But this year, league rules barred scouts from the practices. So the smooth jumpers of Paul Harris, a guard headed to Syracuse, and the rim-rattling dunks of forward Thaddeus Young, bound for Georgia Tech, went largely unnoticed.

Harris and Young have also shown potential to play in the N.B.A. But the league changed its rules because too many high school players, many of whom were drafted mainly on potential, fizzled after signing million-dollar contracts. And most of the players who succeeded, like Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal, sat on the bench before blossoming.

''We consider draft picks to be really big assets,'' the N.B.A. spokesman Tim Frank said. ''We just felt like our teams would be better prepared and have more information on players if they were able to see them on a little higher-level competition. Picking guys out of high school was a very difficult thing.''

Not surprisingly, Durant, Young and Harris each said that high school players should have the right to choose between college and the N.B.A.

Bob Cimmino, who will coach one of the teams in tonight's game, said that players with N.B.A. futures should seek financial security before an education.

''My advice always is, if you're mentally mature and the money is there, take it,'' said Cimmino, the coach at Mount Vernon High School in Westchester County. ''You can always go back to college. The only reason why I ever went to college was to put myself in a position to make more money. Learning comes into it and learning is fun. But you got to set yourself up in life.''

The players' loss of choice is college basketball's gain, but apparently only at the highest level. All 20 players participating in the Jordan All-American Classic will attend colleges with major basketball programs, including Duke, North Carolina, Connecticut and Kansas.

With George Mason reaching the Final Four of the N.C.A.A. tournament earlier this month, the mid-major programs appeared to have gained ground on the traditional powerhouses. But the influx of talent next season could tilt college basketball's landscape back to its customary position.

''Look at all the upsets by mid-major schools, especially in the tournament this year,'' Hofstra Coach Tom Pecora said by telephone Thursday. ''I think one of the reasons for it is they have upper classmen and the majors don't. But now the majors might have LeBron James as a freshman. The freshman monster is back.''

Durant and his peers could have opted to spend the next year in the N.B.A. Development League, where they would have made about $25,000. But the lure of honing their games before painted faces, pep bands and nationally televised audiences was too appealing to pass up.

And, as Young pointed out, using college as a stepping stone to the N.B.A. is a proven formula.